Welcome to the third Tales From GameDiscoveryLand podcast in Season 1. In this episode, we talk to Clara Sia. She’s currently the ‘influencer strategist’ at noted indie publishing label Devolver Digital, but has previously worked in streamer relations for a number of years, and streams on Twitch herself. Our subject? The vitally important - and very complex - YouTube and Twitch ecosystem, one of the primary ways that PC and console players discover games in the 2020s. Below is a lightly edited full transcript of the entire podcast. Reminder: you can get hold of episodes via our official podcast page, and also via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and Pocket Casts. If you need it, here’s our podcast RSS feed. And thanks in advance for listening. Simon: Streamers - they're kind of important to people discovering your game, in 2022. Incredibly important, in fact. Which is why we were so excited to get veteran influencer manager and strategist Clara Sia to the podcast. Clara is currently working at Devolver, and previously had a long-time stint at a third-party agency. She even streams herself on Twitch, and we had a lot to talk about, given the complex nature of the streamer ecosystem. So let's dive straight into what I like to call streamer anthropology with Clara. I'm Simon Carless, founder of GameDiscoverCo, and this is the Tales From Game Discoveryland podcast. Simon: Hey everyone, and welcome to The Tales from GameDiscoveryLand Podcast. I'm Simon, and I'm here with Clara. How's it going? Clara: It's going swimmingly. Yourself, Simon? Simon: I am doing great, thank you. I'm very excited to talk to you because we're talking about streamers, and… something that I think is very important and honestly still not discussed enough in game discovery. This is how you deal with streamers, and how you interact with them, and how they think. I wanted to start by asking you - you've been a longtime Twitch partner yourself focusing on indie titles, I wanted to ask how you personally pick games to feature. Is it the outreach from the dev? The game being great? All of the above? Clara: Typically, all the above, I've always been a casual streamer. So just because I have a little purple check mark it doesn't mean I'm serious or like, a career streamer. I originally started playing Guild Wars 2 and then I moved on to other MMO. I originally did it because… people were giving me in-game gold towards a legendary [weapon] to stream. I… grew to love it and I moved on to triple A titles and retro games. Then I got [Twitch] partnered later that year, and I discovered indie games for the first time. Actually, I just decided I didn't care about numbers, I cared more about just having fun and finding new things. So the discovery is now my favorite aspect of picking and streaming games. I used to do these themed weeks like, you know, paper-themed indie games, dark-themed games, farming… Or if a game or dev at a booth made an impression on me at PAX and then follow up after, I’d play their game. But now I'm super casual. I used to stream five days a week. Now I'm just two nights a week. So I pick something that's come out recently… that fits my current moods. It’s oftentimes more chill these days… I think they're called cozy streams now. And because I'm not a career streamer, I have the luxury to play what I want, and I don't bother with this strategic game choice. That being said, if I ever did want to put serious focus into my stream, there'd be a number of things I'd have to change about it to be commercially successful. And that would include game choice, I would definitely have to be more strategic about it. Simon: That's the nice thing about Twitch. You can have people from all areas, people doing it for fun, and you can have people doing it more strategically for income. And I did wonder about indie titles in particular. It seems like maybe indie titles have a tougher time breaking through on Twitch sometimes than YouTube - have you seen that? And why do you think there might be? Clara: I actually think it's the opposite, personally. It depends on the genre. Some genres and games will do better on Twitch than on YouTube and vice versa. They're completely different platforms & different mediums of content. I'd say though, generally, it's probably easier to break through on Twitch than on YouTube. But YouTube has more lasting power for all genres, due to its evergreen nature. So [YouTube’s] not just for games as a service, or highly replayable games or open world games, which just typically generate more content innately. But if you have your game [featured] on YouTube, that will last forever, because they very rarely take those videos down. Whereas on Twitch, it's fleeting. I'm not saying that [Twitch] streaming is easy. But it's definitely an easier choice for a streamer to take a chance on a game for some number of hours until they get bored than on YouTube - to commit to pre-recording, editing and then publishing it permanently… on their channel. So for YouTubers, that content is worthless until it's published and they won't know how it will do until it is published. A streamer [Twitch] streaming a game - all of that content is usable, it's monetizable content right away because it's live. And they get live feedback as to whether or not it's working for their audience. So for me, it's been easier to break into [pitching games to] streamers that way. And then you get the hybrid influencers who are somehow able to do both live and VOD content successfully. I'm not talking about just uploading their live streams, just raw streams to YouTube. I mean, they made YouTube-specific content, and they made Twitch-specific content. I'm saying Twitch specifically instead of streaming because Twitch is still - by far - the king of all live streaming. So that's where you want your content to live. And in a live-stream fashion, Twitch is where you're going to be looking, mostly. Simon: As you say, it's like if you want to put together a video for a new game on YouTube, then you are going to have to spend time learning it. And I'm always impressed with folks like Splattercat. They seem to be able to learn games enough to do pre-recorded content on them, and then edit it down. And they can only spend a day on that, and that seems really crazy to me. So I think what you're saying is, if you want someone to try a game for two or three hours and see if they like it, then Twitch is sort of a good place for them to get started. And then maybe if you get the hang of that, then folks who are on YouTube would be also be interested in your game. Clara: Yeah, one typically kind of follows the other. Again - it depends on the game, the launch, the story beat as well. Oftentimes you'll give YouTubers earlier access because then they can pre-record, they'll adhere to an embargo. And then they publish the content a certain day - and then live-streamers just go live. [Twitch streamers] don't have that pre-setup time that's required. And then, as I say, oftentimes if something's a hit on YouTube, then Twitch streamers will follow and vice versa. It really depends on what the strategy is for that particular beat. Simon: One thing that devs often ask me or I've seen them say: they feel like Let's Players or streamers are playing the same game over and over again. And in some way they feel like that's ‘unfair’, or something. Do you think that's like a fair criticism and why do you think that happens? Clara: Well, sure, there are definitely a lot of single game or single genre streamers, It's the path of least resistance. There's often still value in targeting both variety and non-variety streamers, though. So I wouldn't necessarily rule them out. I definitely still shoot for anyone who plays in the same genre as your game, even if they stick with mostly… one or two titles. Variety is always harder to gain traction than sticking to one game or genre. There are a number of strategies and metas that come and go in order to maximize viewership.. But they do it for a reason, for the same reason that sitcoms have formulaic structures. You set the expectation and then you meet the expectation. It's very tempting for streamers, especially new streamers, who want to be unique to have specially themed days, regularly scheduled events like talk shows, interview segments, things like that but. But by and large it alienates their viewers… it segments them. Viewers typically want a consistent experience, with very little barrier to entry. And talking about streamers specifically. YouTube again, you can have the preamble it's all pre-recorded. It’s edited - you can skip back and forth. But unlike YouTube, you can't really easily rewind [on Twitch]. It's not designed that way as a live-stream - [you can’t] catch up on any pertinent information, find out what's going on. The majority of [Twitch] stream [viewers] will join midstream. Some will ask what's going on - at which point the streamer or moderator needs to interrupt things, answer them, fill them in. Most viewers on Twitch, though they don't talk at all. They just don't chat. They're just what we call lurkers. They take in, maybe a minute or two of content… and then they silently decide to go elsewhere, if they aren't immediately caught on to what's happening. So for me it's understandable why a streamer would choose to stick to one genre or one game, because it is the path of least resistance. That is where… the easiest revenue lies for most. Simon: So for example, for Northernlion, if you come onto one of his streams as a viewer, you're expecting him to be playing some kind of randomized game where he's making slightly sarcastic comments to the audience. And it's kind of different every time, right? That's how it works. Clara: Yes, and then if he finds a game - and it's not just limited to Northenlion. But if he finds a game, he typically sticks
